


Fairy Tales

by Carbon65



Series: Not with a bang, but a wimper [1]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Drag Queens, F/M, Fairy Tales, Homophobia, No Dialogue, Off Screen Violence, Police state, Political Commentary, Speculative fiction, please read the warnings, prompts, purity culture, sleep intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: It started as the slippery slope from Trumponomics and Jeff Bezos. It ended as the world of company stores and enforcers and curfews. And, amid the magic that was Medda's, he finds her. The girl. The angel. The one he'll never talk to, with her shiny hair and her purity ring, and her too smart words. The girl who belongs to a world he'll never be a part of.





	Fairy Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuppenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/gifts).



> For the prompt, _Dystopian AU + Sleep Intimacy + Jack & Kath_
> 
> Warnings
> 
> There are a lot of implied themes of pretty strong homophobia and transphobia, references to purity culture, police brutality, class warfare, economic depression, and systemic violence. It's one of the darkest, if not the darkest, thing I think I've written in a long time. So, please, proceed at your own risk.

It’s approaching a point when it’s hard to remember what life was like _before_ the world ended. It’s like some distant story that he tells himself before bed: before the world ended. Before there will billionaires. Before the slippery slope from Trumponomics and Jeff Bezos to company housing and enforcers everywhere.

When Jack was a kid, he vaguely remembers learning something about Henry Ford. (You can have any color you want, kid, as long as it’s black.) Now, ole’ Henry is a memory, and it’s just the god of Ford Motor company. It’s a lesser deity, compared to the holy trinity of Jesus™, guns, and Big Pharma. He vaguely remembers what it was like to be able to go out and breathe the air without it catching in his throat. He vaguely remembers what it was like before the storms and fires and mudslides and blizzards and floods destroyed most people’s homes. He vaguely remembers what it was like before everything went to shit.

He’s… he’s pretty good at surviving. Not like prepper good at surviving. There are a lot of prepper TV shows out there, showing how much of a threat the wilderness can be. And how neat white men without facial hair tame the savage wilderness with their guns and their pickup trucks. Nah, Jack is good at practical city survival: avoiding traffic and drug deals and cops and enforcers. He can navigate a grocery store at 3 am without having his face caught on any cameras, and figure out how to pay for medicine for one of his boys without them all starving.

It’s getting close to curfew, or at least, it’s getting close to his curfew. His work papers make it clear that he’s supposed to be a first shift worker. That means he can be out an hour before his shift, and a few hours after. That sorting makes it easier to manage traffic on the roads. If you’re two hours outside your shift, they’ll double your subway fare. More than that, and the price gets steeper. The trains have to be reserved for _workers_. Workers doing their thirty-nine and three quarters before going home with empty pockets and empty bellies to their company apartments.

Jack’s not out for an practical reason: Racer hasn’t gotten himself in trouble, yet, this week. Boots, Albert and Elmer were on the grocery run this month. They took the bus as far away from the company store as they could, to try and get food for less. The vegetables were fresher out there, less bruised and lasted a bit longer. Not much longer - fresh never lasted as long as canned or frozen. But, sometimes... 

He’s not even out for Davey. David “The Walking Mouth” Jacobs has managed not to pull out his economics degree and wicked tongue to lay into Weasel for almost a month. It’s how he ended up working in the pits with Jack and the other boys. David is well educated. He’s smart. He should be able to cling to the middle class life his parents bought. The problem is that David is passionate. He’s a quiet instigator, the voice of reason in everyone’s ear telling them things are wrong. He and Jack… he and Jack might - might have a plan. A way to fight the system. The internet is… not an option. Not anymore. The last few days of the free net have gone. The dark web is a thing of the past. David likes to talk about a time when there was a free flow of information, when independent artists could build a living. Jack thinks that sounds amazing. He wishes he could make art, instead of waving signs all day.

This is one of the few times Jack is out for himself. Miss Medda Larkin is having a show, and Jack will do almost anything to go see Medda. Don’t get him wrong - he adores Jimmy. But, Medda is someone special. Medda is someone magical. And, if he gets there in time, he can see that magic happen. He can watch as Jimmy uses a pile of glue and baby powder and carefully horded makeup to turn in Medda. Jimmy isn’t one of the shiny people, but Medda is. And, that’s why Medda is too perfect to exist in real life, why people like Medda are reserved for TV. It’s the reason that Jack creeps out after curfew to see her.

He spends too much time dodging the cameras and the enforcers and the cops. It’s a long walk from the company’s lodging house to the underground bar where Medda is performing. He slips in the back anyway. It’s like he has money for the cover. Or the two-drink minimum. It’s tantalizing close to what he has, but it’s just out of reach.

He goes looking for Jimmy, but Medda is already there. She gathers him into a big hug, promises that he can stay for a bit. She asks him if he’s eaten, and when he says yes, she gets Jacobi, the bartender, to bring out a plate of deep fried vegetables and a coke. He doesn’t kiss her cheek - that’s one of the first rules with Miss Medda, but he goes and takes a seat up by the bar.

He studies the rest of the people in the bar. He sticks out like a sore thumb in his ratty baseball cap, cheap t-shirt so thin it’s designed to be disposable and the pair of ratty running shoes he wears for work. The others have been smarter: they’ve shucked their street clothes for other pants, other shirts, other shoes that so the glitter comes off more easily. But, if he sticks out like a sore thumb, then so does the girl down the bar from him.

She’s dressed… she’s dressed better than he is, that’s for sure. That doesn’t make her belong to this place any more than he does. Her clothes say, “Savings account” and “morgage”. He knows from Race that her shoes cost more than their rent. A silver ring - a purity band - glitters on her finger. He can tell, because he’s seen the pattern before in the kind of plated copper that leaves a green stain on girl’s fingers even when they try to hide them away. There’s no green around her ring, no black either. The only marks on those hands are flecks of ink across her long fingers. Even her hair screams money. Jack isn’t sure how auburn hair cut just below the shoulders can, but hers does.

He also doesn’t know why, but he needs to talk to her. He pushes through the crowd of men, women, and people who are both and those who are neither.

She’s writing, in a little paper notebook. With a pen. Not one of those cheap ass notebooks and cheap ass pens you get at the company store, either. The kind of notebook that Jack spends his day packing into boxes: smooth black cover, cream colored pages with little black dots, two ribbons tucked neatly inside. All wrapped up with a smooth white collar in german, french, spanish and english and shrink wrapped in plastic. Even though Jack has handled them so many times, he’s never actually seen one of those notebooks in person. Her pen is the same: he’s seen the boxes, handled the boxes, wanted to try one so badly.  
He works in a place where they track his movements, time his pee breaks, and take an extra unpaid hour of his day so they can make sure he hasn’t stolen 0.45 cents worth of plastic. He’s never had a chance.

He goes over and greets her, trying to be as smooth as possible. He leans against the bar.

She shoos him off, making some bullshit claim about having to work. A girl like that… a girl like that doesn’t have to work. A girl like that comes from a different place, that’s like the fairy tales his moms used to tell, before they left. He doesn’t believe her.

But, the music starts. The bar goes dark, and then bright again with the spotlights from everywhere. And, glitter seems to explode.

Medda is resplendent. Even though Jack has known her since he was a little boy, when she takes the stage, it’s still a sight to behold. He sits, transfixed, watching the shimmer of glitter and the promise that anything is possible.

 

Even though it’s dangerous, he keeps going back, whenever Medda has her shows. He wants the magic, but he also wants to see the girl again.

Jimmy finally sits him down, and tells him that he can’t just keep sneaking in for free. Which is how he ends up sitting in the bar late one evening, sketching backgrounds and going through prop ideas. Jimmy, Spot, Andrew, Billy, and Tom are all there, agreeing (or disagreeing) on how the work should be done. Jack does quick, angry sketches in ballpoint pen on the notebook paper, fingers blue where he smudges the ink. Reggie points frantically at the one he likes. That one. That’s it.

The door blows open, one of those late July storms, the first hurricanes building off the Atlantic. The redhead is there. She hurries over, says quick, tight words to Billy. She pushes something across, written in that neat black hand in that beautiful archival quality ink, on her smooth, creamy paper.

She pushes it at Billy, her eyes pleading and her words the same battering tumalt as the water that will come soon. She begs Billy for something, to do something, to say or be something. She presses that scrap of paper into his hands and a crisp white envelope into his jacket pocket, and a kiss onto his cheek.

And then, the club explodes into chaos. Cops and enforcers, and “concerned citizens” and who knows what the fuck else.

Jimmy yells and Spot yells and Andrew yells and she yells. And Jack goes, and grabs her by the hand. He pulls her, tugs her out the back where the bouncer doesn’t come and down the dark ally and across the city. It’s after curfew, well after his curfew. He doesn’t know if she has a curfew, doesn’t know where she belongs.

He leads her along the winding allies, and she’s silent. For the first time, she’s silent. Every other time he’s seen her, she’s been filled with words. Her hands, her voice, her body. Its all a story, a tangled mess of words and images and ideas. Archive black and creamy white with the world in between.

The lights are up when they get back to the company housing. It’s later - or maybe earlier - than he thought. First shift is awake, third will be back soon. There will be that two hour repeat of what was on TV when he got home. The programs he didn’t watch. And, they’ll go to the store to buy prepared meals, and go home for more re-runs and more false promises.

He tugs her toward the crowd. Then stops, realizes that he can’t. She’ll stick out. They’ll stick out. He pulls her into one of the back alleys, into the ruins of the ancient tenements which because the old projects that grew into the company housing.

He sends a text to Race. `SICK TODAY`. Race will call in for him.  
He hopes he doesn’t lose his job. Damn it, he needs that job if he wants to keep eating. And, he’d like to keep eating. He loses that one, and he’ll be back to trying to find money from somewhere else. He’ll be back to begging from strangers and borrowing against a job he doesn’t have to pay his rent.

He hates his job. He hopes he can keep it, because as much as he hates it, he hates the feeling of hunger more.

They find a room with four walls in the burnt out building. There aren’t lights, but it doesn't matter so much. The sun will be up soon: another hazy gray day in a parade of hazy gray days. He finds a place from them to hide, a closet. 

Pats himself down for a phone, and shuts his off. Gets hers out, and even though she’s shaking and afraid, she turns it off too. She says something about Ajit Pai with a quiet huff. And then something about Paris. And then, Regan and Gottard and Pence. And that begins a tirade. A litany. A monologue. All the things that are wrong and all the things that used to be right, and the reasons all of it changed.  
And, he’s fascinated. He’s enthralled. He’s heard some of the words before, heard them from her before, but never directed at him. Never intended for him. 

It takes time, but she calms. Her breath hitches, and the tone changes. The fight peters out. She looks up at him with those big brown eyes, tears glistening on the edge. She is tired, she is so damn tired.  
And then, she says the words that he knows he should have been expecting. The kind of words that everyone knows. That she’s tired. That she’s going to sleep.

He stares her, he doesn’t know where to go. You don’t… you can’t… even married couples sleep in twin beds that they push together and pull back apart. Jack has sometimes fantasize about what it would be like to… to share a bed with someone. To fall asleep curled in their arms and wake up with their breath tickling his neck. In the privacy of his own sleeping pod, trying _very hard_ not to do things that will tip off those _particular_ algorithms, he imagines what it might be like. And, oh, that… that more than anything… that is something he wants.

She curls up, huffs out a breathy little laugh. Looks up at him. Says the words.

He lays down, on that dusty floor amid Billy Graham only knows what. He lays down next to her, feels her body near his. Feels the trust.

She turns, leans in close so their breathing syncs up. Whispers more words, soft and quiet. Words that will forever sit in his brain like black ink on white paper. Even if their story doesn’t have a happy ending - and how can their story have a happy ending, the princess _always_ marries a prince and not a commoner - he’s got now. He leans in close, lets himself relax, lets himself fall asleep.

The next morning, they wake up together: tangled together for warmth. The night has left Jack stiff in more places than one, and he wishes he could go somewhere to… work things out. Instead, he busies himself figuring out how to get her - how to get Kitty - back to where she belongs. And how to get himself back into the Company Housing without the enforcers noticing. 

She leans in, kissing him on the lips, says something about Pretty Woman and Julia Roberts, and he doesn’t know that fairy tale. She presses something into his hand: a bundle of paper with something cold and hard inside. She takes her phone and he walks her down the stairs and out into the gray light of the late morning.

And, as she’s walking away, he un-crumples the paper. In his hand is the ring, and a note. And a promise. And a fairy tale.


End file.
